5,154 research outputs found
Spin Hall Effect and Spin Transfer in Disordered Rashba Model
Based on numerical study of the Rashba model, we show that the spin Hall
conductance remains finite in the presence of disorder up to a characteristic
length scale, beyond which it vanishes exponentially with the system size. We
further perform a Laughlin's gauge experiment numerically and find that all
energy levels cannot cross each other during an adiabatic insertion of the flux
in accordance with the general level-repulsion rule. It results in zero spin
transfer between two edges of the sample as each state always evolves back
after the insertion of one flux quantum, in contrast to the quantum Hall
effect. It implies that the topological spin Hall effect vanishes with the
turn-on of disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures final versio
Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topologically Invariant Chern Numbers
We present a topological description of quantum spin Hall effect (QSHE) in a
two-dimensional electron system on honeycomb lattice with both intrinsic and
Rashba spin-orbit couplings. We show that the topology of the band insulator
can be characterized by a traceless matrix of first Chern integers.
The nontrivial QSHE phase is identified by the nonzero diagonal matrix elements
of the Chern number matrix (CNM). A spin Chern number is derived from the CNM,
which is conserved in the presence of finite disorder scattering and spin
nonconserving Rashba coupling. By using the Laughlin's gedanken experiment, we
numerically calculate the spin polarization and spin transfer rate of the
conducting edge states, and determine a phase diagram for the QSHE.Comment: 4 pages and 4 figure
Mott physics, sign structure, ground state wavefunction, and high-Tc superconductivity
In this article I give a pedagogical illustration of why the essential
problem of high-Tc superconductivity in the cuprates is about how an
antiferromagnetically ordered state can be turned into a short-range state by
doping. I will start with half-filling where the antiferromagnetic ground state
is accurately described by the Liang-Doucot-Anderson (LDA) wavefunction. Here
the effect of the Fermi statistics becomes completely irrelevant due to the no
double occupancy constraint. Upon doping, the statistical signs reemerge,
albeit much reduced as compared to the original Fermi statistical signs. By
precisely incorporating this altered statistical sign structure at finite
doping, the LDA ground state can be recast into a short-range antiferromagnetic
state. Superconducting phase coherence arises after the spin correlations
become short-ranged, and the superconducting phase transition is controlled by
spin excitations. I will stress that the pseudogap phenomenon naturally emerges
as a crossover between the antiferromagnetic and superconducting phases. As a
characteristic of non Fermi liquid, the mutual statistical interaction between
the spin and charge degrees of freedom will reach a maximum in a
high-temperature "strange metal phase" of the doped Mott insulator.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure
Phase diagram of the frustrated, spatially anisotropic S=1 antiferromagnet on a square lattice
We study the S=1 square lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet with spatially
anisotropic nearest neighbor couplings , frustrated by a
next-nearest neighbor coupling numerically using the density-matrix
renormalization group (DMRG) method and analytically employing the
Schwinger-Boson mean-field theory (SBMFT). Up to relatively strong values of
the anisotropy, within both methods we find quantum fluctuations to stabilize
the N\'{e}el ordered state above the classically stable region. Whereas SBMFT
suggests a fluctuation-induced first order transition between the N\'{e}el
state and a stripe antiferromagnet for and an
intermediate paramagnetic region opening only for very strong anisotropy, the
DMRG results clearly demonstrate that the two magnetically ordered phases are
separated by a quantum disordered region for all values of the anisotropy with
the remarkable implication that the quantum paramagnetic phase of the spatially
isotropic - model is continuously connected to the limit of
decoupled Haldane spin chains. Our findings indicate that for S=1 quantum
fluctuations in strongly frustrated antiferromagnets are crucial and not
correctly treated on the semiclassical level.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Mean-Field Description of Phase String Effect in the Model
A mean-field treatment of the phase string effect in the model is
presented. Such a theory is able to unite the antiferromagnetic (AF) phase at
half-filling and metallic phase at finite doping within a single theoretical
framework. We find that the low-temperature occurrence of the AF long range
ordering (AFLRO) at half-filling and superconducting condensation in metallic
phase are all due to Bose condensations of spinons and holons, respectively, on
the top of a spin background described by bosonic resonating-valence-bond (RVB)
pairing. The fact that both spinon and holon here are bosonic objects, as the
result of the phase string effect, represents a crucial difference from the
conventional slave-boson and slave-fermion approaches. This theory also allows
an underdoped metallic regime where the Bose condensation of spinons can still
exist. Even though the AFLRO is gone here, such a regime corresponds to a
microscopic charge inhomogeneity with short-ranged spin ordering. We discuss
some characteristic experimental consequences for those different metallic
regimes. A perspective on broader issues based on the phase string theory is
also discussed.Comment: 18 pages, five figure
Thermocatalytic syntheses of highly defective hybrid nano-catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution
Defects play important roles in many catalytic processes, particularly for photocatalytic processes in semiconductors as they can alter the band structures and affect the excited electron–hole recombination pathways/lifetimes of semiconductors. In this report, we described the development of a facile route to the production of highly defective photocatalysts. Firstly, organic species were bound onto the surface of a metal oxide semiconductor catalyst, followed by a relatively low temperature ageing in N2, to remove the organics and to attract oxygen molecules from the surface, generating oxygen vacancies. In particular, we introduced a co-catalyst during the syntheses, which acted as a thermocatalyst to promote full oxidation of the organics, leaving more oxygen vacancies at the surface and to form intimate heterojunctions with host-catalysts to further drive the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The hydrogen evolution rate for our developed NiO–TiO2 defective heterojunctions in a sacrificial system was measured at ca. 1.41 mmol g−1 h−1, which was much higher than those of comparable catalysts reported in the literature (that generally display hydrogen evolution rates <0.4 mmol g−1 h−1). Computational simulation, together with other analytical techniques, suggested that the generated surface oxygen vacancies could induce a series of impurity energy levels within the VBM and CBM of TiO2 that narrowed the electron transmission gap in the TiO2 and acted as active sites for the reaction between adsorbed H2O and photoinduced trapped electrons to produce H2
Magnetic Incommensurability in Doped Mott Insulator
In this paper we explore the incommensurate spatial modulation of spin-spin
correlations as the intrinsic property of the doped Mott insulator, described
by the model. We show that such an incommensurability is a direct
manifestation of the phase string effect introduced by doped holes in both one-
and two-dimensional cases. The magnetic incommensurate peaks of dynamic spin
susceptibility in momentum space are in agreement with the neutron-scattering
measurement of cuprate superconductors in both position and doping dependence.
In particular, this incommensurate structure can naturally reconcile the
neutron-scattering and NMR experiments of cuprates.Comment: 12 pages (RevTex), five postscript figure
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